"Commentary from P.M. Carpenter"

February 21, 2013

Another trip to Realityland

[T]he public is not expressing a particular sense of urgency over the pending March 1 sequester deadline. With little more than a week to go, barely a quarter have heard a lot about the scheduled cuts, while about as many have heard nothing at all.

Meanwhile, because partisans have focused on their heated partisan disputes and the media have focused on the partisans' engagement of heated partisan disputes, President Obama's singularly emphatic message of fiscal balance has pretty much drifted out of public sight:

When those who favor a balanced approach to reducing the deficit are asked if the focus should mostly be on spending cuts or tax increases, they overwhelmingly say spending cuts. Overall, 73% say efforts by the president and Congress to reduce the deficit should be only or mostly focused on spending cuts [italics mine].

That's an alarming statistic. It powerfully suggests that Obama's calm arguments for reasonable compromise are losing (or have lost) to the hysterical eructations of the two-ring partisan circus--which both plays into Republicans' hands and manifests itself in the spending-rather-than-new-revenue stat.

All of which means the heated partisans could be amusing us into another recession, or something damn close to it.

Comments

[T]he public is not expressing a particular sense of urgency over the pending March 1 sequester deadline. With little more than a week to go, barely a quarter have heard a lot about the scheduled cuts, while about as many have heard nothing at all.

Meanwhile, because partisans have focused on their heated partisan disputes and the media have focused on the partisans' engagement of heated partisan disputes, President Obama's singularly emphatic message of fiscal balance has pretty much drifted out of public sight:

When those who favor a balanced approach to reducing the deficit are asked if the focus should mostly be on spending cuts or tax increases, they overwhelmingly say spending cuts. Overall, 73% say efforts by the president and Congress to reduce the deficit should be only or mostly focused on spending cuts [italics mine].

That's an alarming statistic. It powerfully suggests that Obama's calm arguments for reasonable compromise are losing (or have lost) to the hysterical eructations of the two-ring partisan circus--which both plays into Republicans' hands and manifests itself in the spending-rather-than-new-revenue stat.

All of which means the heated partisans could be amusing us into another recession, or something damn close to it.